


Cupcaking

by dasyatidae



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, Antioch rules of consent, Arthur and Eames are middle school teachers, Baking, Friends to Lovers, Harry/Draco slash, M/M, NaNoWriMo, Oakland, Texting, serious conversations about toxic masculinity and consent under a veneer of rainbow cupcakes, writing buddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 10:18:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9230576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasyatidae/pseuds/dasyatidae
Summary: Arthur’s NaNoWriMo novel is driving him crazy, and the cupcakes he baked for the first Queer Straight Alliance meeting of the year have come out all wonky. Can Eames come beta one?





	

**Author's Note:**

> My first Arthur/Eames fic, a little love letter to the fandom that has sustained me through this past year. <3 
> 
> Many thanks to deinvati and kate_the_reader for the beta!

Are you coming tonight?

_Sender: Eames18:2511/16/2015_

 

Looks like you’re behind…

_Sender: Eames18:2611/16/2015_

 

Or are you holding out on me, darling?

_Sender: Eames18:2611/16/2015_

 

You haven’t updated your word count since Monday?!

_Sender: Eames18:3711/16/2015_

 

??

_Sender: Eames18:4511/16/2015_

 

Writing from home tonight. Conscripted into baking cupcakes. First QSA meeting of the year tomorrow.

_Sender: Arthur 18:4611/16/2015_

 

Ari thinks it’ll be “cute” if we frost our own rainbow cupcakes while sharing our preferred gender pronouns.

_Sender: Arthur18:4611/16/2015_

 

Aw, the ickle firsties’ first QSA!!

_Sender: Eames18:4611/16/2015_

 

You mean Ari thinks cupcakes will be less intimidating than the impromptu restorative justice circle you opened with last year…

_Sender: Eames18:4611/16/2015_

 

What kind of cupcakes?

_Sender: Eames19:1011/16/2015_

 

What’s it to you?

_Sender: Arthur19:1211/16/2015_

 

(maudlin emoticons)

_Sender: Eames19:1211/16/2015_

 

Stop texting me. I’m trying to write. And bake.

_Sender: Arthur19:1211/16/2015_

 

(more maudlin emoticons)

_Sender: Eames19:1311/16/2015_

 

They might be funfetti. And they are definitely for sixth graders and not for you.

_Sender: Arthur19:1511/16/2015_

 

(even more maudlin emoticons)

_Sender: Eames19:1511/16/2015_

 

Are you stuck?

_Sender: Eames19:1911/16/2015_

 

Remember last year when you were at 25k by now?

_Sender: Eames19:2011/16/2015_

 

Why are you texting me? Why don’t you go write something.

_Sender: Arthur19:2111/16/2015_

 

Hey! Did you end up going to Cafe Trieste?

_Sender: Arthur19:4911/16/2015_  

 

Eames?

_Sender: Arthur20:0411/16/2015_

 

Are you home?

_Sender: Arthur20:0511/16/2015_

 

I changed my mind. You can have a cupcake.

_Sender: Arthur20:0511/16/2015_

 

Hey, actually can you please come over and beta one of these cupcakes for me? 

_Sender: Arthur20:2211/16/2015_

 

Not sure about them. 

_Sender: Arthur20:2211/16/2015_

 

They smell weird.

_Sender: Arthur20:2311/16/2015_

 

darling :D 

_Sender: Eames20:2411/16/2015_

 

yes :D :D

_Sender: Eames20:2411/16/2015_

 

 Arthur is stuck. Everything he’s written since Monday has sucked. And yes, that’s kind of the point of NaNoWriMo. Usually he just embraces the suck and writes like crazy for one glorious, caffeine-and-endorphin-driven month. So it’s not really the writing or the sucking that’s the problem. This is his fourth year participating; he can roll with the punches.

It’s just. The sucky stuff that’s rabidly writing itself every time he sits at his laptop or starts scribbling in a notebook over the past three days has been Not Part of his Novel. Not in that “go with it” way where he can keep pasting it all at the foot of his chapter or hide it in another document, pretending like he’ll get to those scenes eventually or he’s writing outtakes or something. No. He’s at the halfway point of his novel, and some really exciting shit is supposed to be happening, but the only thing he’s capable of writing all of a sudden is seriously porny Harry/Draco slash.

He already knows what Eames will say: Just change the names and some details and cram it in there somewhere!

And Eames will say: This is great, Arthur! 

He’ll say these things with that wicked bright smile, as if Arthur’s H/D rut is really a Christmas present or the Most Interesting Thing that could happen to Arthur’s novel. Eames approaches most of life that way, from what Arthur can tell. Which is probably why he keeps Arthur in a perpetual state of wary bemusement. Eames is a natural story-teller, a fucking delight at dinner parties, and the kids’ favorite whenever he deigns to sub. Arthur probably puts the most effort out of anyone he knows into stymying and stonewalling Eames’s banter and enthusiasm, yet Eames can still make him cry for laughing so hard when he tells those dog stories from his stint working at a puppy daycare. Arthur can list ten ways that Eames is seriously annoying as an occasional co-worker, writing buddy, and, well, friend, but Arthur isn’t stupid. He knows Eames is one of those people who’s an Event. A lot of Eames’s stories are about people he used to know but doesn’t anymore. Arthur does the math. Eames is a temporary phenomenon in his life, and as such, Arthur begrudges him all the space he’s forced — seduced — into allocating to him.

Except.

It’s November. 

And no one he knows IRL really cares, except for Eames. 

Ari would do NaNoWriMo, she insists, but she’s too busy with the PhD program — and before that, it was all the work for her master’s — on top of teaching, leading the sixth grade team, and managing numerous student clubs and staff committees.

Arthur has some friends whom Eames calls the slits — serious literary types — making it sound fucking dirty, of course. They don’t really go in for NaNoWriMo, and they’re not that fun to talk to about it. They’re kind of caught up in adjunct politics and refining their processes, which always seem to look very different from Arthur’s.

Honestly, Arthur’s social life isn’t brimming with friends these days, in real life or online. His first two years as a teacher took everything out of him. It’s only in the past year that he’s had his routines down enough to relax during happy hours with his coworkers, go on a few dates, and write more often. Before, it was all he could do to occasionally make dinner with Ari and then pass out on her couch.

So, the H/D smut. Plan A was to not let Eames anywhere near it. He has an infuriating habit of waiting until Arthur gets in a good groove to sneak behind him and start reading over his shoulder. And he insists that they read aloud to each other — extremely theatrically, of course — every time they hit a mutual break point because hearing the sentences out loud is the best way to see if they sound right. At least he has the decency to never make fun of Arthur’s reading voice, which one of his exes and a couple of the slits are annoyingly wont to do.

These cupcakes though. 

These cupcakes are weird. They smell kind of wonky. All he did was pour the ingredients into the bowl — all the floury stuff with some oil, eggs, and water. It wasn’t supposed to be hard. Ari promised it wouldn’t be hard.

Plan B involves distracting Eames with the glamorous and day-saving role of cupcake tester while talking incessantly about work. Eventually Arthur will stretch and yawn and mention how much he misses having a first period prep, and Eames will take the cue and leave. Plan B is solid.

Eames lives a ten-minute bike ride from Arthur’s place, a real straight shot, at night especially. He should be here soon. Arthur minimizes and re-opens the document he’s working in absently. 

The timer goes off again. More weird cupcakes. Ugh.

Arthur fiddles with his keyboard protector, picks up one of the glutinous cupcakes to sniff it suspiciously. Puts it down gingerly on top of his copy of _The Chrysalids_. Types, “Now that Harry has him on his bed, he wants to touch Draco everywhere. And the blonde is so still, lips wet and parted, shirt riding up to show a stripe of pale skin, the plane between his hipbones. Harry notices the way his fingers almost hover, hesitant to grip Harry’s sheets or Harry’s legs where they have him pinned. They’re like his eyes, unsure. Harry wants to lean down and press his face into Draco’s neck, to tell him, _we are actually here_  or _I’ve got you_  or some other possessive incoherence. Instead, he can’t help it, he rubs his face against Draco’s inseam, feels him shudder, mouths the hardness of his cock through his jeans, not caring that his mouth is so wet, practically overflowing with saliva, hungry for it—”

“Arthurrrr,” Eames intones, drawing out the R in his characteristic purr. 

Arthur jumps and slams his laptop shut.

Eames is standing outside the kitchen window, his nose pressed against the screen, looking stupid in his ridiculous bicycle helmet, as usual.   
  
“Jesus,” Arthur says. “Knocking? Could you try knocking?”

Eames raps on the window frame.

“Ha ha.” Arthur is finally catching his breath. And he isn’t blushing, no. He’s just scowling at lurker Eames from across the kitchen. 

“I wanted to bring my bike around the back,” Eames says. “Can you let me in?”

Arthur huffs and stomps out of the kitchen to unlock the back door. He waits for Eames to negotiate the gate with his road bike, which is one of those super fancy lightweight bikes that Eames, with his broad shoulders and muscled arms, could probably heft with one huge hand. (Arthur, on the other hand, is always struggling to carry his steel framed Motobecane down the stairs to the train. He’s strong, but the fucking thing is unwieldy.)

“Hello,” Eames says, favoring Arthur with one of his thousand-watt grins. Arthur scowls down at his feet. Well, the half boner he had worked himself into writing is most certainly gone. At least there’s that. 

  
 

“So what’s the cupcake emergency?” Eames asks as he waltzes into the kitchen after Arthur, having deposited his bike and that dorky helmet in the laundry room. He’s drumming his fingers against the worn leather of his messenger bag and rocking slightly onto his toes, still smiling at Arthur. His graying black jeans contrast with his usual loud patterned hoodie. 

“What are you wearing?” Arthur gripes. “Are those koalas? It looks like koalas … at a rave … having a fight with a geometry exam.” 

Eames beams at him. “The kids like it.” 

“Hmm. They were probably just humoring you."

“You know they rarely do that,” he says mildly. 

The little cloud of kinetic energy that Eames perpetually exists within carries him around the room and to where Arthur was sitting. Arthur is glad that he hid his laptop under the newspaper as Eames runs his fingers over Arthur’s work station and picks up the tiny tumbler Arthur has been drinking from. “Baking cupcakes and drinking sake, Arthur?”

Arthur shrugs and sighs. “Well, it’s what was in the house. Challenging baking projects call for libations.”

He catches Eames wrist as he goes to sip from the cup and draws him to the counter, liberating the cup from Eames’s large hands. He grabs a matching tumbler from the cupboard and pours Eames a diminutive drink. “Here.”

“Germaphobe.”

“I’m just looking out for you. Now that you’re part-time you’ll be losing your super immune powers, you know.”

Eames’s classroom had been next to his when Arthur first started teaching at Rosa Parks. He had gotten used to having to raise his voice to teach over the rumble of Eames’s through the too-thin portable building walls, to be heard over Eames’s enthusiastic science lessons and the whoops and laughter of his students. Eames often did a call and response thing, not to mention all those games about heat and matter and the solar system with all the clapping and the gestures that Arthur could never quite follow. Arthur is the strict teacher, though his kids all appreciate it later when they get to high school math, he knows that. Arthur was the strict, boring teacher. Now that Eames is just subbing and Ms Ketterly has the room next to Arthur, she’s the boring, strict teacher, and he’s the nice, strict teacher. 

Everything is relative.

Eames takes the sake and sips it with an expression that reads as studied meekness. Arthur should really stop digging into Eames for leaving.

“Anyway …” Arthur shrugs.

“No worries, pet. I miss you too,” Eames says, the fucking mindreader. He places a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Lead me to the cupcakes!"

   


“Where’s the box?” Eames asks. “Did you get it from the bargain store?”

“Over there.” Arthur gestures to the neat half of the kitchen counter, the half that has not been overtaken by bowls, mixing implements, and various bags and jars from the pantry. 

Eames picks up one of the three funfetti cake mix boxes. It has not been opened. None of them have been opened. “I see,” he says, giving Arthur a look that belies the comment. An appraising look, one of those _what now, you crazy and handsome man?_ looks that Eames has been giving him more often lately. It pains Arthur to admit that he has come to relish these looks and to secretly scheme how to provoke them. If Arthur were being quite honest, the looks he gives Eames could be called by the same name. But he’s not quite ready for that level of honesty, so he’ll keep considering them looks of skepticism and exasperation, thank you very much. 

“If the mix is in here, then what, dare I ask, is in there?”

They stare at the cooling army of cupcakes that look like they have been arrested in the middle of a group escape out of the muffin baking tins and across the kitchen table.

“After I bought the box mixes that Ari told me to get, I started thinking it was a little shabby to bring the kids cupcakes out of a box. They’re probably filled with chemicals, right? I looked it up, and baking cake from scratch isn’t that hard."

“So you baked them from scratch.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you follow a recipe?”

“Kind of. I couldn’t find a good one, so I sort of combined a couple.”

“Because you didn’t have all the ingredients?”

“I had to improvise a bit,” Arthur admits.

“So these are Arthur originals!” Eames says with glee, seizing a cupcake and peeling back its paper delicately — an operation that looks strange with his square, callused fingertips. He licks the cupcake experimentally. “Hmmm. How does one make funfetti ‘from scratch,’ Arthur?”

Arthur drops back into his chair at the table with a sigh. “I tried to mix sprinkles into the batter. But maybe they’ll be too crunchy? Or maybe the sprinkles have all sunk to the bottom?”

“You haven’t tried one,” Eames says around a mouthful of cupcake. “I’m your only guinea pig.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, that’s disgusting. You know I don’t eat gluten.”

“Hmmm.” Eames sits down next to Arthur without pulling the chair out, so they’re too close, their knees practically touching. Eames begins to unwrap another cupcake. “Need to gather more evidence,” he tells Arthur, who slaps his hand. “Corporal punishment. You know we’re not supposed to do that anymore.”

“You’re not a child."

Eames waggles his eyebrows at him. “The sprinkles are a little crunchy,” he says.

Arthur watches him eat the second cupcake. He’s discomfited to find that he’s tapping his fingers against the side of his chair in a quick rhythm, a nervous tic. Eames always puts on such a show. It’s so annoying. Just look at him dropping crumbs on Arthur’s floor. He is so annoying. 

“They’re not crunchy in a bad way though,” Eames says thoughtfully. He’s holding Arthur’s gaze rather mercilessly, and Arthur refrains from snapping at him to quit it with the gazing. Eames has a real gazing problem sometimes; Arthur’s seen it come out during after work drinks and during writing sessions. Once with that history teacher last year at happy hour, which was gross, made Arthur want to scream.

“Not a bad crunchy, okay. Anything else?”

“A little more specificity, darling?” Eames licks a crumb from his lips. Arthur is staring at his lips, he realizes. Which means Eames is gazing at Arthur staring at Eames’s lips. Arthur refrains from literally facepalming by standing up abruptly. 

“Tea?” he asks.

Eames beams at him, as if he can’t tell that Arthur is glowering, dammit. “I thought you’d never ask.”

   
  


Arthur clangs around the clean half of the kitchen making tea, keeping his back to Eames. He knows by now how to wait out his little fits of whatever around Eames. He asks Eames about his week and learns that Eames has mostly been writing but has also covered a day of Spanish at the high school and spent the weekend helping a friend work on his sailboat. By the time the water’s boiled and he’s fixed their cups right—minus a little of the indecent amount of sugar Eames is partial to, because he’s already had enough sugar with those cupcakes, for goodness sake — Arthur is rattling on about the Queer Straight Alliance and his planning meeting with Ariadne. Eames makes little, noncommittal responses, which probably means he’s still eating cupcakes. Good thing Arthur baked way too many. Maybe if they’re so appetizing they came out alright and are not as weird tasting as Arthur had feared.

He brings the tea to the table, interrupting his own story to ask, “So what’s the verdict?” 

“Delectable, darling. Fucking hot.” And, “Nearly thirty pages. I knew you were holding out on me!” 

He’s only … reading from Arthur’s laptop. Argh. 

“Oh, fuck you,” Arthur hisses, sloshing tea onto the table as he slams the mugs down. “How do you even know my password?” Dammit. What was plan C? Plan D?

Eames laughs, holds the laptop above his head as Arthur grabs for it. Arthur practically ends up in his lap, which won’t do at all. He sits back down and crosses his arms. Sulking, yes. That can be Plan C. 

“It’s good,” Eames says. He hands Arthur the computer. “It’s really good."

“Oh, I knew you’d say that!”

“Did you?” Eames smiles at him, head tilted a bit to one side.

“Well.” Arthur runs his hands through his hair. He’ll make it fall into his face, but at this point he doesn’t care. He supposes it sounds rather ridiculous to say that Eames always thinks his stuff is good. That’s not what he means. “You’re always very encouraging, is all. Anyway, it’s not the point, whether it’s good or not. It’s a total rut. I can’t use any of it for my story. And don’t tell me I can. I’ve thought about it, and I can’t. It just doesn’t fit. I am writing a science fiction adventure, not fucking wizard erotica. I am writing the type of novel draft my mother can read over Thanksgiving while she’s drinking her coffee!”

Eames tilts his head further, quirks an eyebrow, looks speculative.

“Don’t even say it,” Arthur warns, “Whatever you’re thinking right now about my mom."  

“Alright.” Eames holds up his hands in a truce. “Maybe you just have to get it out of your system,” he suggests. “That’s how it usually works, yeah?”

“That’s not how it’s working for me right now,” Arthur grinds out. “Don’t you think I’ve tried that? I’ve been writing as much of this shit as I can for the past week. I’ve been staying up writing hot wizard smut every night, writing it in the morning while I’m drinking my coffee — no, fuck off, I do not write it at school — but wouldn’t you think I’ve written enough to have gotten it all out.” He gestures helplessly. “So I could write something, anything else again?” Arthur trails off in frustration, throwing his hands up in a defeated gesture. When he finally looks up and meets Eames’s eyes, Eames is giving him an intense stare, his green eyes narrowed speculatively, kind of predatorily. 

“A little pent up by now, are you?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Arthur repeats, but it doesn’t come out with the venom he’d managed before.

“When I said get it out of your system,” Eames says. “I didn’t mean write it out.”

“Didn’t you?” Arthur rolls his eyes.

Eames reaches out, trails his fingers over the backs of Arthur’s hands, over his knees. 

“Oh. Eames,” Arthur says warningly. And has it really come to this? “It’s not funny,” he says stiffly. “I know you think it’s funny. I know other people think it’s …” Arthur flounders trying to think of the word for how other people find Eames when Eames is like this, a word that won’t make Arthur’s head explode. “You know, cute, maybe? But for me, it’s … hard … not having a firm boundary, you know, between being friends and, you know …” 

“It’s hard,” Eames echoes with too much appreciation. And with the gazing again. Jesus. 

“What I mean is, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t flirt with me because we’re coworkers and sort of friends. And I don’t have any other writing buddies. Okay?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any disrespect.” Eames pulls his hand back. “I’m always horrible at these kind of things.” He gives Arthur a wide grin which strikes Arthur as a little self-deprecating, not quite reaching his eyes. Then he’s looking away from Arthur.

“These things?” Arthur echoes. “What are you saying, Eames?”

“I’m saying that you’re my favorite person to write with, Arthur. And that doesn’t make me scared to kiss you. It makes me want to kiss you. Other parts of it scare the hell out of me. Like saying this to you right now, having you kick me out, pelt me with cupcakes as I run down the street. And then you might sell my bike on craigslist.” 

Arthur smiles a bit. He can’t help it.

“But the way we get on — the way I’ve been waiting for November with my heart in my throat since the end of summer — that’s what’s good, darling. I don’t know what it says about me as a writer that I need the excuse of your delicious wizard smut to tell you this, but I’m weirdly horrible at these things,” Eames repeats in a smaller voice, trailing off.

Which really isn’t like him, Arthur thinks dully. Eames’s voice is never small. It’s probably because Arthur is just sitting here, staring at hands clenched in his lap, not saying anything, not saying any of the words that are flying around in his head.

Horrible at these things. Confessions of feelings. Feelings for Arthur. Now, today, of all times. Not eight months ago, not next November. Arthur clenches his hands together. Eames is. So. Annoying.

  
  


And here’s another thing about Eames — well, a thing about Arthur, actually. He guesses “pent up” is as good a way to describe himself as any. He’s had dates lately. And that couple-year thing with Xavier that was pretty serious for twenty somethings but ended when Arthur started teaching. And before that David and the Douchebag Who Shall Not Be Named. He’s hooked up a lot across his twenties, has had fun, has pushed his edges, more or less in a good way; he could hold his own with Eames that one time in a game of Never Have I Ever. (Stupid idea though, that.)

But lately, it’s been harder. The problem hasn’t been the date guys, he thinks; they’ve been funny, hot, and kind, for the most part. It’s been Arthur. It’s like something’s shifted in him, something is off.

Arthur’s been good at the dates — picking a wine or a whiskey, swapping stories, laughing, sitting knee to knee. But the sex part — fuck, even the kissing. The touching, the nearness. With all that, he’s struggling.

That last guy, Heath — he was super hot. Ari confirmed it when Arthur showed her a pic. He had a nice laugh, and Arthur wanted to touch his hair, thought about burying his hands in it as they put on their coats and zig-zagged out of the bar. But when Heath leaned in to kiss him, something in Arthur’s chest froze and then flew into a panicked rhythm; the little voice in his head whirred into action, narrating his discomfort. And Arthur pushed through it, opened his mouth and kissed like he remembers that he’s always kissed, like he remembers that he likes kissing: running parted lips over Heath’s, meeting his tongue, pressing his body forward. But the panic was there underneath it, and the narrating voice imagined that Heath must be able to sense it, must know something is wrong with Arthur. And, like, objectively, he knows it was a good kiss, and he _did_ want to touch Heath’s hair, he _did_  want to kiss him. In the bar, he did _want_ , dammit. It’s just. Suddenly he didn’t. Heath’s tongue in his mouth felt like an invasion, and even the soft press of his lips, his body, against Arthur made Arthur want to untangle himself and run away. So that’s what he did, basically. Excused himself, a little breathless, smiling to cover the way he’d practically winced under the other man’s touch. He had a very nice time, he said, he did. Walked home. Probably left Heath a little mystified, but fuck it. Arthur is mystified too. What has happened to him?

It’s like it’s all come crashing down on him, every time over the years some dude creeped on him. Getting handsy with him at a show or pushing him up against a wall outside a club all of a sudden. The times he just went along with it when someone he was with wanted a fuck. And not even just that, weirdly, but, like, normal relationship stuff. Giving Xavier blow jobs on the regular because he thought that’d keep him happy with their relationship — thinking and feeling that was totally normal. All that kind of stuff, the regular managing, the give and take of intimacy, of sex. It’s like this code, this way of being, to which he has lost the key, the language. It had all been so simple, and now it feels so complicated. Like he has drawn back the veil of his own desire and found an impulse to get by, to take, to please others in the place of what he really wants, whatever that might be. He doesn’t even know. This other stuff — the getting by and the pleasing —has taken up all the space where what he wants might have grown. 

Lately, when dudes have entered his orbit hungry for him, it’s made his body tight and angry. Arthur has wanted to uncoil, to lash out, to fucking punch someone in the face. The feeling scares him. Not the punching — he’s always enjoyed sparring at the gym — just the potential for loss of control. And even more often than barely checked anger, he’s felt the impulse to flee, to escape, like he did during the date with Heath. Fuck it. This is just not how he works. His feelings, his body — usually they are so tightly under his control. They do what he wants, what he thinks they should do. They do what he decides he wants. But now it feels like they’re rebelling and also finally telling him some important truth he has been ignoring.

If he had to pin it down, he might start with: for years he’s been attuned to what others want in relationships. He thought that attunement was what he wanted, was what it _is_  to want. Now he imagines that it could be different. He doesn’t know how, just that it could be.

He doesn’t feel anywhere close to figuring it out. How is he supposed to figure it out, smack in the middle of his busy life? It feels like it would take several years at a silent Zen retreat or something to make any progress.

Instead he has Eames here, talking about kissing him. 

Eames, not some date guy.

Eames, who thinks Arthur’s writing is brilliant, who always acts glad to see him just to see him, who doesn’t seem to have endless expectations of Arthur, a litany of needs for Arthur to fill. Eames, the Event, for whom Arthur has an encyclopedia, a fucking D&D manual, worth of expectations. Arthur has too many expectations of Eames to tread lightly here, he realizes. Doom, doom, doom.

  
 

Arthur clears his throat. He will try to say something. “It’s just … how to say …” 

“Arthur, can I kiss you?”

A sun flare of panic. No, it’s okay. Yes, just, yes. Say it. You want it. But somehow Arthur says, “No,” hates himself, bites his lip, releases it, exhales loudly. Where was that NO living inside him? How could it live in the lust, the want, that’s tingling along Arthur’s limbs, pooling in his core, starting to pull at his cock? How could it coexist with the nerves, with the whatever this is that is complicating Arthur’s life? Arthur waits for Eames to withdraw, to laugh it into a joke and turn the conversation back to Arthur’s story. When he does none of those things, just sits quietly, Arthur asks, “Can I kiss you?”

There is a difference, a small world of difference, to Arthur, he realizes. With hope.

Eames says, “Yes.” 

He waits as Arthur leans across their space, shifts his legs against Eames’s thighs, and gently presses their lips together. The only movement Eames makes is to part his ridiculously plush lips against Arthur's. His eyelashes flutter as he looks down his nose at Arthur, as if he’s taking in the way Arthur fills his vision. He’s not a statue as Arthur kisses him; he waits for Arthur’s touch and then seems to melt into it, the movement of his lips and tongue tracing behind Arthur’s, soft, intentional. Arthur draws back. His heart is throwing itself against his ribs. He stares Eames down.

Eames smiles at him.

“Can we — uh —” 

Arthur hates how inarticulate he’s being, but it’s like he has to rein back and smother the words that come easiest to him:

       _I’m sorry_

_I know this is weird, but_

Breathe. Speak slowly. You can.

“I want to kiss you again. I want to lie down and feel your body. Put my hands on you.” 

         _But_

_No, not but. And. I want to kiss you, and_

“ _And_ would you like to do that? Can we keep going, can we do those things, exactly like this? I would really like it if we could.”

“Exactly like this,” Eames repeats back. “Yes. Can you tell me more, Arthur? I want to … to get it right.”

Get it right _._ Arthur nods, but the phrase paralyzes him. What should he say? What would getting it right even mean? Arthur wishes he knew for himself, let alone so that he could tell Eames. After a few moments of silence, Eames speaks again. 

“You’ll ask me, and I’ll answer?” His eyes flutter down to his lap for a moment before locking on Arthur’s. “And you’ll tell me if I start to cross a line, do anything that makes you uncomfortable, and we’ll stop?”

“Stop or slow down.” Arthur swallows. It seems like as good a place to start as any. He would give anything to know what Eames is thinking, really thinking. Except with Eames gazing (yes, gazing) at him, it’s harder to pull back into that nervous, whirring part of his mind. Eames is smiling at him, and his eyes are alight. He’s breathing just a little more quickly than normal. The color in his cheeks might be a bit high, not that Arthur looks at Eames enough to know for sure, of course. Eames looks — not delighted or that type of hungry, charming pleased he does so well — he looks — well, he looks fond, excited maybe. Nervous?

“Yes,” Eames says finally, low and emphatic. 

“Yeah?”

“That’s perfect, sweetheart. Ask away.”

“You don’t want a — ?” Arthur makes a circling gesture in the air. An explanation. An instruction manual, a warning label?  “I’m still working it out, it’s just …”

“Arthur,” Eames says — gently, Arthur thinks. “Of course I want to talk to you about what you’re into, what you like. That’d be hot as hell. Hot like this.” He taps Arthur’s laptop, now shut on the table, the smut document on the screen ready to greet Arthur when he next opens it. “But you don’t have to…” He copies Arthur’s gesture. “ _Justify_ — now or ever — what you want. I don’t think of it like that. Being with you would be a gift. I’m not expecting you to do anything or to be anyone in particular for me. I want to kiss you, but I’m just happy to be here with you, you know? To finally be here with you with this out in the open between us …”

Arthur lifts his hand and runs it along Eames’s arm, up the soft pilled fabric of his hoodie to the collar of his t-shirt, the hard line of his collarbone, the warmth of his neck. Eames leans into the touch, his eyes still on Arthur; he doesn’t lunge or grab or thrust, doesn’t take over.

Arthur’s blood thrums. “Will you come into my bedroom with me?”

“Yes.”

Arthur pulls him up, relishing the way Eames’s usual solid firmness seems to melt softly against Arthur’s lithe form and trembling palms. He’s pliant, still, leaning forward only enough to breathe against Arthur’s hair. Arthur slides his hands under his hoodie. “Can I?” 

Eames nods, and Arthur flings the awful technicolor koala explosion aside, presses his forehead against Eames’s chest, against that space above his collarbone he had touched so tentatively a moment before.

Arthur walks him backwards toward his room. Eames keeps his eyes on Arthur — his big, green, pretty eyes. God, Eames is so pretty, and Arthur is so nervous. Breathe.

Arthur has imagined Eames in his bedroom. It was after the gazing episode with that fucking history teacher who ended up moving to Milwaukee or maybe Mars (Arthur hopes). At the end of that night, Arthur slouched off home and lay on his back on his bed, chasing his whiskey thoughts around the ceiling and across his bookshelves. He had allowed himself to picture falling through the doorway with Eames in a tangled-up rush of laughing and kissing, touching and stumbling. And Eames would leave Arthur panting half undone at the edge of the bed to circle Arthur’s once spartan space and to run his fingers over all the books, baubles, pinned up photos or drawings from the kids, pens, and discarded sweaters, the artifacts of Arthur’s life. He’d nose around curious finding meaning in it all, finding Arthur in it all. Then he’d turn and pin Arthur and strip him and gather him up, fuck him dizzy into his bed. Arthur imagined this twice, three times through, stroking his cock, adjusting and zooming in on details, until he came into his wadded up t-shirt like a teenager and passed the fuck out.

Arthur has imagined Eames in his bedroom, but now it’s different. Eames lets Arthur back him up against the bed frame and drop him onto his back. 

“I want to take this off.” Arthur runs his hands over Eames’s shirt. “And these.” His jeans. Arthur can feel how hard he is through the material, fuck. “Everything.”

“Yes,” Eames pants. “Do you want me to —?”

“Let me.”

“Yes. Arthur — please — I want —”

Arthur runs his fingers over Eames’s jaw, over his cheekbones, down the bridge of his nose, over his lips. Eames turns into Arthur’s touch, pressing his lips against Arthur’s palm. He lifts his hips so Arthur can pull his jeans away, sits up as Arthur slides his shirt off, instantly pressing his hands to the warm skin of Eames’s back, trailing his fingers down his sides, brushing his thumbs over his hipbones and the soft hairs on Eames’s thighs. 

What now? What now? Where to begin? He looks down at Eames, stretched out, stripped down, all skin, eyes open, warm, and Arthur realizes his darting heartbeat is only one quarter trepidation/worry, three quarters excitement/pleasure — and if that changes, well, that will be okay. 

“Can I touch you?” he breathes.

With Eames, who grins at Arthur as Arthur finally, finally lets himself wrap decisive fingers around the delicious thickness of Eames’s heavy cock, the question is not where to begin but where to go now. And, you know, Arthur has a few ideas.

Eames moans a little as he pulls his hand away but the sound turns into an inhale, _oh!_ , when Arthur licks his hands, wraps his lips around his fingers, gets them dripping with spit. He grabs Eames again and smiles at the feel of him, so hard and slick now. He slides and twists his hand, exhilarated, just wanting to feel as much of Eames’s skin, his fucking gorgeous plush cock, as possible. Eames eyelashes flutter when Arthur ghosts his palm over his head, red and exposed with his foreskin pulled back by Arthur’s light grip. 

Arthur wrinkles his nose. “It’s this weird thing. I always have so much saliva.” 

“Oh?” Eames manages. “Yes, how…weird, pet. Exactly the word I was, um, thinking,” he gasps, as Arthur switches hands and tightens his grip.

“You’re making fun of me.”

“You’re hard on yourself sometimes.”

“Mmm, hard,” Arthur leers, doing his best Eames impression, which garners a snort from the man trapped between his legs. 

“That was my left hand, by the way,” Arthur adds. “I’m not left handed.”

Eames full-out laughs now. “I am also not left handed,” he manages. His hips cant upwards off the bed to meet Arthur’s strokes. “Arthur,” he gasps, a warning. 

“Eames. I want to taste you.”

“Oh God.” Eames tilts his head back, runs a hand over his face. “Give me just a moment, sweetheart. Can you talk about something that’s not — that’s not your gorgeous wet mouth —”

“My gorgeous, wet mouth,” Arthur muses, touching Eames’s full lips lightly. God, he always wants to be touching or kissing Eames’s mouth; it’s distracting, it’s unfair. 

“You’re going to destroy me, pet,” Eames says. But he’s smiling, and there’s no complaint there behind the words. He’s not saying, _can’t I touch you, can’t I take you, can’t I press and pull and grab you and tear you apart_ —the thought of which makes Arthur’s mouth even wetter even as he knows he’s not ready for that yet. He wants to be here, sitting atop Eames, touching him and licking him, pressing against him and being slow, very slow, being very in control. “Just — keep talking about _The Princess Bride_  for, like, sixty seconds,”  Eames says, hands still over his eyes. 

Smirking, Arthur climbs back off of Eames and the bed and undoes his jeans, kicks free of them. He’s so fucking hard, the front of his navy blue briefs is dark with leaking pre-come. Eames still has his hands on his face and is actually watching him through the spaces between his fingers, the fucking adorable dork. Arthur undoes the buttons of his Oxford shirt slowly, lets it fall open to show the soft, tight shirt he’s wearing as an undershirt. Hesitates, decides to leave it on.

Arthur climbs back atop Eames slowly and pulls his hands away to kiss them, to press his mouth against Eames’s eyebrows, his cheekbones, the stubble on his jaw. He kisses him.

“Now can I? Got ahold of yourself yet, Mr. Eames?”

A breathy laugh at the address. “Go ahead,” Eames murmurs into his mouth. “You can destroy me.” 

Arthur kisses his way down Eames’s body, lingering to tongue his tattoos, then licks the length of him and takes his cock as far down his throat as he can, resisting his gag reflex, wanting to take in as much of Eames as possible. 

“Arthur, fuck,” Eames groans. His perfect stillness breaks just a little as he moves his fingers against the rolled up sleeves of Arthur’s Oxford, against the soft skin of his inner arm. Arthur closes his eyes, focuses on the small touch that sends ripples through him and on the taste and feel of Eames on his tongue, the pressure at the back of his throat. He slides up and flicks his tongue over the head of Eames’s cock before swallowing his length again. He has one hand on Eames’s waist, tracing patterns over where he knows Eames’s ink patterns are; somehow the sensation of his fingers against Eames’s skin, the rhythmic kneading touch, is going right to his cock — and fuck, he’s so hard. He wonders how much self-control it’s taking for Eames to not bury his fingers in Arthur’s hair. Eames is digging his fingers into Arthur’s sheets now. Arthur flicks his gaze up from under his dark fringe to observe Eames stretch and shudder; he’s torn between needing to watch his effect on the man and wanting to close his eyes and just breathe him in, to focus on the sensation of swiping his tongue over the slick, smooth, warm skin of his cock. 

Arthur really wants to press his face to Eames’s, to hover close and watch while Eames comes. Yes, that’s what he wants. He pulls away from Eames’s cock with a little moan that Eames echoes and slides up Eames’s body. He’s so solid, it makes Arthur’s mouth water to think about what it would feel like for Eames to press his bulk into Arthur — to crush him to the sheets, mouthing his ear, his neck, Arthur’s legs wrapped around his waist. God, Arthur wants that. God, thinking about it makes him want to fuck Eames so badly right now. Or get fucked by him. He’s not sure which, if either, he can handle right now, but sitting atop Eames amidst the possibilities is a delicious rush. 

“Get on top of me,” he says, gripping his shoulders and rolling Eames. He moves how Arthur directs him, lets Arthur pull him close until he can feel Eames weight. “It’s okay, yes. Kiss me. I want you to rub on me and — and put your hands on my wrists. Like that, yeah.”

“Arthur,” Eames groans, wrapping his hands tightly around Arthur’s arms and rocking into him. Arthur stretches for his mouth, sucks on his lower lip, wants to lick into him and taste him. 

Moments later, the contact is no longer enough. “Wait, help me take my shirt off.” 

Eames pulls back and strips him of his Oxford. He looks like he’s going to chuck it onto the floor but seems to catch himself at the last moment; he places it on Arthur’s nightstand instead. “What about this one?” he asks, hands once more on Arthur’s back, slipping over the thin, ribbed cotton of his undershirt. 

"Yeah.”

Arthur pushes Eames back down beneath him and rubs himself against Eames’s chest. Skin on skin. Perfect, yes. With a kind of reverence, he brushes fingers over Eames’s tattoos, his chest hair, his nipples. “Ugh, you’re pretty,” he tells Eames. “I can’t believe we’re actually …”

“I know, right? It’s … awesome,” Eames gasps. Probably because Arthur has pushed at the band of his briefs until he can get his hand around his own cock and slide it together with Eames’s, fingers slipping.

“Awesome?” Arthur grins at Eames’s unraveling. “I’ve thought about doing this with you, here in my bed, so many times.” 

“Darling, really? Sometimes I thought — but I was never sure.”

“I just keep picturing your hands on me, all the ways I want you to touch me, to fuck me into the bed. You have amazing hands, you know that? ” 

Arthur catches one of Eames’s hands and brings it to his mouth, can’t resist wrapping his lips around Eames’s thick callused fingers—which are so expert, whether they’re securing lines and tying knots on a sailboat or flying across a keyboard, lifting a very small cup of sake or conjugating verbs on a board — or, yes, touching Arthur. When Arthur lets his hand go, Eames curls it around the back of Arthur’s neck, so gently, as Arthur grinds against him. “Eames,” Arthur breathes. “Will you talk to me? Tell me you’ve thought about doing this.”

“Arthur, you have no idea.” 

“Tell me how you want to fuck me. Tell me how you’re going to fuck me, Eames.” Arthur feels this tendril of confidence — of pleasure, he realizes — flaring in him, tingling down the back of his neck where Eames’s hands gingerly rest. Eames’s pretty green eyes are wide and fixed on Arthur as if Arthur were holding the seams of the world together; his lips are wet and his breath comes roughly. 

Eames pulls him closer and speaks against Arthur’s mouth, his cheek, the curve of his ear. “You have no idea how I want you constantly,” he repeats. “I want to stretch you out on the bed and get between your legs, use my mouth on you. I’d swallow you so deep, get you right to the edge and keep you there. Play with you.”

It’s perfect, exactly what Arthur wants and needs right now — Eames’s honey voice, barely in control as Arthur wraps his hand fully around Eames’s thick cock and begins to stroke. Arthur’s touch is teasing; he’s curious if he can make Eames tongue-tied. “What else?” Arthur prompts, licking at Eames’s jaw when Eames stutters to silence and thrusts up into Arthur’s fist. “Eames, keep telling me.”

“I — I — Arthur, fuck — I’ll suck you until you’re yanking on my hair—begging me to just let you fuck my face — let you come —”

Eames is wet from Arthur’s spit and Arthur’s hand slides all over him, fingers twisting, palm sliding over the head of his cock. It’s so good. Arthur doesn’t even need to touch himself, not yet, not right now. “And then?” he pants, mind blissfully blank beyond _more_ and _yes_. “Eames.” Pleading. _More._

“And then,” Eames pants. “I’d want you to come all over me, pet. All over my mouth and my — my throat. God, I’d be so turned on, feeling your come hot on my skin.” 

“Oh, fuck, that would be —”

“I’d slick you up with it, darling, with your come. I’d work you open and get you wet for me with it.”

“Yes, oh fuck, yes.” Arthur’s finding his edge; Eames’s voice is pushing him there. Maybe this was what Arthur was aching for when he derailed his novel with the H/D smut, though Eames’s broad body beneath his is so different from the angle-sharp, lissome Draco he’d been writing. Maybe Arthur was thinking about all those times Eames read his work aloud, voice roughening intimate moments, punctuating sentences by giving Arthur heavy-lidded looks. And now they’re here writing together onto each other’s bodies. Arthur wants to exhaust himself, to wear Eames down, for Eames to never stop talking. He wants the silk of Eames’s sweaty skin against his own, his cock so full and smooth and perfect to hold and stroke, to run his hands all over, lighting up every nerve ending in Arthur’s fingers and palms.

Arthur kisses Eames, though he doesn’t want him to stop talking. “S’so good,” he tells him, just so Eames can be sure, because a shred of tentativeness has never left his eyes since they started this thing in the kitchen. But tentativeness is not the only thing in his expression, and Arthur is so glad to be treated with care. Glad that his touch, his presence, is not assumed or taken for granted by Eames.

“Yeah?” Eames breathes. “I’m so close.”

“Tell me how you’d fuck me, Eames.”

“You’re relentless.”

It’s not a criticism. Arthur grins, baring teeth. “I am.”

“I love it.”

“Yeah?” Arthur bites at Eames’s neck, rubbing against him, stroking Eames steadily; he’s pushing into Arthur’s fingers more insistently now. Arthur feels dexterous, feels wanted, feels in control. Yes.

“Yeah, oh, I’d — I’d — God, how would you want me to fuck you? I’d do whatever you want, Arthur. I’d make it so good for you.”

“I know you would. You’re so thick. I’d fuck myself on you while you’re stretched out like this, just taking it.” Arthur can see it, and he pictures Eames behind him too, holding him close in his lap, breath across Arthur’s neck making him shudder. And he pictures burying his face in the sheets as Eames slams into him, big hands holding his hips tightly. “Eames—”Arthur can’t pull back from the edge. He’s coming hard all over his briefs and over his hand wrapped around Eames’s cock, and Eames swears, stiffens, and comes too, pulling Arthur down tight against his chest, pressing his face into his neck. Eames, sticky, sweaty, and tasting sweet like a confection. Arthur curls his fingers in Eames’s short hair, lets himself go limp. He lets himself be held.

  
 

Arthur grabs the quilt that’s become wedged between the bed and the wall and unfolds it over them, repositioning himself so he’s on his side; Eames shifts to face him so they’re nose to nose, making parentheses around the tenderness and uncertainty Arthur feels welling up between them — welling up within him, at least. He’s not sure how Eames feels, except — well, Eames is smiling at him, flushed and hair even mussier than it usually is from his perpetual beanie or his bike helmet. Arthur has this crazy urge to yank the quilt up over their heads and hide them away like they’re in some kind of blanket fort. Eames is the kind of person who would make epic blanket forts, Arthur’s sure, the kind of person he could burrow away with and feel like it was everything, like the rest of the world was missing out instead of like he was missing out on the world. Eames, the Event. Will Arthur feel taken apart, invaded, once Eames has left him and he’s alone again in his bed?

“Eames, what is it that you want?” Arthur wonders. An easier ask than _what the fuck do I want?_ But, you know, that question isn’t burning through Arthur right now; he’s sure it’s still waiting for him a little further out. But right now his inner monologue is muted, and he wants to enjoy the quiet. 

“What do I want?” Eames plucks at a wrinkle in the sheets between them as if nonchalant. “Arthur, I want to go out with you and have you teach me about all the fancy whiskeys, just like all the other fancy boys you go out with.”

Arthur snorts. “How do you know about that?”

“Are you kidding? Do you think you have any secrets from the sixth grade team?”

“Fucking gossip mill,” Arthur agrees. “But wait, really?”

“Well, not really. A little bit. I might have also talked to Ari.”

“Talking to my best friend about my dates!” Arthur thwaps his arm.

“Okay, no, I definitely didn’t do that. I must be _really_ psychic.”

Arthur laughs, and it turns into a yawn. “I need to put away the cupcakes before I pass out.” 

“Mm, my cue to go home.” Eames’s voice is light.

“Like, after I shower — I will not touch the cupcakes before I shower, obviously.”

“Well, maybe I’ll stick around a little longer,” Eames amends.

   


Arthur holds Eames close in the shower, trying to maneuver both their bodies under the spray of hot water. It’s kind of impossible, but Arthur feels so warm from the contact that he doesn’t mind. “Do you want to stay?” he says. “I mean, would you stay, if I asked you?” 

Eames tightens his arms around Arthur. It makes Arthur’s heart swell, and it’s almost suffocating; it’s all so much. Eames wanting to be here with him.

“Be honest. We’re not playing Arthur Says right now.” It’s easier to ignore the way his voice catches a little if they’re not making eye contact.

“Mmm. Arthur Says. My new favorite game.” Eames squirms as Arthur goes in for tickling, digs his long fingers into Eames’s sides. Then he pulls back and fixes Arthur with a serious gaze as his hands drop to Arthur’s waist. He looks as serious as a person with a soapy mohawk can, Arthur supposes. “Arthur, I want to stay with you. I want to cuddle you, squash you, snore in your ear, and make you _hell of_ claustrophobic all night long until your alarm goes off at an entirely horrible hour of the morning and you throw me out so you can beautify and caffeinate yourself to go fortify the next generation of queers with those brilliant homemade rainbow cupcakes.” He says all this in a rush, in one breath. The combination of his accent and the townie slang he’s appropriated is cuter than Arthur will ever admit. 

Arthur raises an eyebrow at him. 

But Eames perseveres. “They are. You bake some fucking brilliant delicious cupcakes, my love.” 

My love. Arthur swallows, confronted again by Eames’s ability to steal his breath, the thief. “You forgot about the part where I sell your bike on craigslist,” he murmurs.

“Please, anything but that.” Eames laughs, and Arthur is compelled to reach up and touch the smile crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He says, “I want to do all of those things — the cuddling and the snoring.”

“But?”

“ _And_  I think, for tonight, I’ll enjoy the thought while I bike home. So I can beat off in peace, you know, before I pass out.” Arthur thwaps him again. “I mean, so I can let you get your rest,” Eames says against Arthur’s mouth. 

  
 

While they dry off and get dressed, they talk about their novels, the places where they’re stuck. Arthur wonders if Eames is making a bigger deal out of his current dilemma for Arthur’s sake, but whatever, he’s in the mood to be cheered by this ridiculous man. They fumble around the kitchen, shouldering each other at the sink as they scrub their hands yet again with soap. (Arthur insists, before they handle the baked goods.)  

Arthur tries to be sneaky about packing a tupperware with cupcakes for Eames and tucking it into his bag, but Eames probably sees him. He kisses Arthur’s ear when they say goodnight, and he lets Arthur push him up against the door frame for a while to work his tongue back into Eames’s mouth and his hands back into his pants. He can feel them both getting hard again, and he laughs. “This is crazy. I just want to stay up all night with you. I’m going to be such a mess tomorrow at work.”

Eames snorts. “Doubtful.” Then, thoughtfully, with a wicked grin: “Maybe you can call out and I can take your classes. Sleep-deprived teaching is one of my specialties. Well, you needn’t look so horrified.”

“I’m just imagining the chaos you’d cause. You’d completely re-do my seating charts. You’d ignore my lesson plans and spend the entire period teaching math raps. And when I got back, I’d have to listen to a week of complaining about how I’m not as cool as Mr. Eames.” 

Eames shakes his head, runs his fingers through Arthur’s hair. “You’ve always been my favorite teacher, you know that,” he whispers, suddenly serious.

“Oh.” Arthur hadn’t known that. But now, maybe, he could, he might. 

When they finally break apart, breathing hard and struggling to stop touching, Arthur knows he should say goodnight quickly and close the door. But he fidgets in the doorway and can’t help raising a hand to wave goodbye as Eames tugs his gear-side jeans up over his calf and glides away. 

Twenty minutes later, curled in his crumpled bed, Arthur texts,

        Want to write tomorrow at the cat cafe after school?

And Eames replies,

        darling :D

        yes

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cupcake: The Awakening](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10710450) by [teacuphuman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacuphuman/pseuds/teacuphuman)




End file.
